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Alicia Williamson


Inmate Name: Alicia Williamson Charge: Murder Sentence: 10-12 years Prison: Raleigh Correctional Center for Women, North Carolina Alicia Williamson was born in 1965 in Birmingham, Alabama. Her mother was a teenager when she had Alicia and her younger brother Willy. The family lived in the projects west of downtown Birmingham. When Alicia was three, her mother divorced her father and told her children he had died. As a single mother now in her 20s, Alicia’s mother often wasn’t able to care for her children so Alicia watched over Willy as they grew up. Then, when Alicia was seven, her mother married an entrepreneur who adopted both Alicia and Willy. Two years later, Alicia had a baby sister named Angela but four years after she was born, her stepfather passed away, leaving Alicia’s mother to fend for herself and her children. Alicia was often shipped off to relatives. It was during one of these visits, Alicia claims, that she was raped. Finding herself pregnant, she was taken by her mother to get an abortion. To make matters worse, Alicia discovered in her junior year of high school that her mother was doing drugs. Nonetheless, Alicia went on to college to study nursing but dropped out to take care of her mother and sister. When she was 22, Alicia got pregnant and married her boyfriend just before her son Freddie, Jr. was born in 1988. But about eight months later, the couple separated. Then, in 1989, Alicia discovered that her mother had lied to her about her biological father’s death. He was living in California with a family of his own. Alicia went to visit him and developed an instant rapport. The two remained close until his death a few years later. In the meantime, Alicia gave birth to a daughter named Nakia and, after the devastating loss of her father, married Nakia’s father, Terence Williamson. But just four years later, Terence and Alicia separated. The rejection from two husbands weighed heavily on Alicia’s diminishing self-esteem. To lift her spirits, she tried to buy a new car she could not afford by forging a check stolen from a woman she took care of. She was arrested for check fraud in Georgia in June 2003. Feeling lonely and depressed after two weeks in jail, Alicia looked for companionship on an Internet dating site. She connected with Robert Atkins Jr., a former air force officer and high school football star, whom she had briefly met at a job fair the year before. After a month of phone conversations, Robert drove to Atlanta to see Alicia and invited her to move in with him in Charlotte so that she could start a new life. Although Alicia says that Robert made no promises of an intimate relationship, authorities believe that she might have harbored hopes for a romance between the two. Alicia left her daughter behind with a relative, planning to bring her once she landed a job, and moved in with Robert on July 27, 2003. Alicia says that the first day went well; she concentrated on her job search. But by the second day, things started to go downhill. Robert became taciturn and sullen. He had decided to get back together with a former girlfriend and had second thoughts about inviting Alicia to stay with him. Cooped up in Robert’s home and away from her family, Alicia felt isolated and betrayed. And she had run out of the medication she needed to help her stay focused. After nine days of living with Robert in a platonic relationship, Alicia says she was confused and depressed without her medication. The tension between Robert and her had increased since he had asked her to leave. When he returned from work that evening around nine, he erupted in anger when he realized that she had locked down the computer she had been working on. Alicia claims that Robert attacked her. She snapped, grabbed a barbell and struck him. Then allegedly, after a further struggle, she grabbed a knife and stabbed him 27 times. Alicia pled guilty to second-degree murder, and since she had no violence in her past, she was sentenced to 10-12 years. While in prison, she works as a housekeeper at the Governor’s Mansion in Raleigh, North Carolina. Alicia is deeply sorry for what happened.